Chen Xuan, a modern financial trader, was transported to the first year of Qianfu (874) in the late Tang Dynasty due to an accident. At the beginning, he is heavily in debt and is sold as a slave of a salt lord. Life and death are on the line. On the way to escape, he chanced upon Huang Chao, a down-and-out private salt dealer.
Chen Xuan relied on the logic of modern economics and insight into human nature to reveal the lifeline of the salt government in a few words. He was appreciated by Huang Chao and became his accounting staff. Originally he just wanted to make a living and find an opportunity to escape, but after witnessing the excessive taxation by the government, the disregard of human life by aristocratic families, and the same filth within the so-called "rebel army", he was gradually involved in the torrent of uprisings.
He and Huang Chao turned from masters to brothers, fighting side by side; they repeatedly dealt with and joined forces with various competitors - family counselors, local warlords, and court hawks. He designed and innovated the military system, built an intelligence network, controlled the food price battlefield, and helped the rebel army grow from a few hundred people to an army of hundreds of thousands.
But a reversal followed: after Huang Chao became emperor, he became increasingly suspicious, and the former brothers began to be wary of each other; the people Chen Xuan saved turned to betray him; the most trusted lieutenant turned out to be an undercover agent of the imperial court. The joy was that he gained life-and-death friends, confidants, and the support of millions of soldiers and civilians; the tragedy was that he watched his idealism being corrupted by power, and had to be repeatedly torn between "preserving his brothers" and "preserving his conscience."
The ultimate goal: "I can't stop this uprising, but I want to let the people who deserve to live survive." Chen Xuan wants to find his own path to be a hero in the purgatory of the late Tang Dynasty - not to change the dynasty, but to bring this cannibalistic world to an early end.
